Chronicling Mbeki's political manoeuvres

David Welsh assesses William Gumede's new book on ANC governance.

Summary - William Mervin Gumede’s book Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, 2005) is perhaps the best book yet written on South African politics in the post-1990 era.

A journalist with a strong scholarly bent, Gumede writes as someone closely approximating a political insider. What gives his book a special edge is the large number of interviews, many on condition of total anonymity, with ANC members, including a number of senior people, and others close to the action.

A major part of the book shows in riveting detail how Mbeki has fought off and, for the time being, tamed the left in the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies.

Mbeki reckoned that if the new South Africa was to succeed, it would need the co-operation of the (almost exclusively white) private sector. He acquiesced in the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which was a wish-list compiled largely by the unions and their advisers, but he was instrumental in having it junked, to be replaced by the far more market-friendly Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy.

The radical switch caused an outcry of protest from the left, not only because of Gear’s ideological content, but also because of the high-handed way in which it was forced down the ANC’s collective throat with no consultation and thereafter deemed “non-negotiable”.

However, apart from passing comments, Gumede says nothing about the most glaring failure of government in the first 10 years of democracy, namely the inability to turn around apartheid’s most devastating legacy, schooling for Africans. Nor does he say anything about the seeming inability of the state to cope with the chronic skills shortage.

In one of the best chapters in the book, Gumede describes a corollary of the inability to root out poverty: the rise of social movements, outside the control of the ANC, and, hence, the target of Mbeki’s deep suspicion.

Gumede deals critically, but fairly, with two of the biggest failures of Mbeki’s administration: HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe. He shows how mad Mugabe has repeatedly reneged on undertakings given to Mbeki, whom he regards as “an arrogant young upstart who should defer to him as an elder statesman”.

Mbeki has won the battle for control of the ANC, if not necessarily its soul, by a variety of wiles and stratagems that have rendered the ANC a top-down organization run on the principle of democratic centralism. His successor, argues Gumede, would probably share Mbeki’s pragmatism and ideological orientation but, he warns, “the ANC alliance is weary of [Mbeki’s] autocratic style, and his successor is likely to have an established reputation of inclusive, open and consultative leadership”.

William Mervin Gumede’s book Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC (Zebra Press, 2005) is perhaps the best book yet written on South African politics in the post-1990 era.

A journalist with a strong scholarly bent, Gumede writes as someone closely approximating a political insider. He has trawled through the existing literature, but what gives his book a special edge is the large number of interviews, many on condition of total anonymity, with ANC members, including a number of senior people, and others close to the action.

Predictably, Thabo Mbeki emerges as a complex character: clever, tenacious, ruthless, and ever-determined to capture the soul of the ANC and force it into the mould of a modern social democratic party, similar in its thinking to Tony Blair’s New Labour Party or Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party.

A major part of the book shows in riveting detail how Mbeki has fought off and, for the time being, tamed the left in the African National Congress (ANC) and its allies, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). As a young man, Mbeki followed his illustrious father Govan into the SACP, but by the late 1970s his disenchantment with Marxism-Leninism had reached the stage where he was prepared to jettison his earlier beliefs. In due course he allowed his membership of the SACP, in which he had held high office, to lapse.

The two chapters describing how Mbeki was a prime mover in causing the ANC to reorient itself away from the tired and discredited nostrums of old-fashioned socialism — which had retained considerable support in the ANC — are especially interesting.

Mbeki knew, especially after the collapse of Marxist-Leninist states in Eastern Europe, that socialism in that sense was dead; but he also reckoned that if the new South Africa was to succeed, it would need the co-operation of the (almost exclusively white) private sector. He acquiesced in the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which was a wish-list compiled largely by the unions and their advisers, but he was instrumental in having it junked, to be replaced by the far more market-friendly Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) strategy.

While Gumede’s book is principally analytical, his views on the management of the economy under Mbeki contain much criticism of Gear, the tight monetary and fiscal policy, privatisation and globalisation, all of which he appears to oppose. He is also highly critical of Black Economic Empowerment, regarding it as largely a failure because it has achieved little more than to enrich a small cluster of politically-connected people.

He is also sharply critical of privatisation as a cause of unemployment, and the poverty in which so many people are mired. What could alternative policies, implicitly advocated by Gumede, have achieved? He does not spell this out. A weakness of the book is that, apart from passing comments, he says nothing about the most glaring failure of government in the first 10 years of democracy, namely the inability to turn around apartheid’s most devastating legacy, schooling for Africans. Nor does he say anything about the seeming inability of the state to cope with the chronic skills shortage.

In one of the best chapters in the book, Gumede describes a corollary of the inability to root out poverty: this is the rise of social movements, outside the control of the ANC, and, hence, the target of Mbeki’s deep suspicion. Gumede writes:

New civil movements have emerged because they are needed. Opposition parties do not articulate the needs of the marginalised masses, and representative institutions are inaccessible. If delivery remains slow and the ANC continues to choke internal dissent, the first faint stirrings of a new resistance struggle could turn into something of far greater magnitude. If the deep inequalities of the past are not rectified soon, a full-blown and devastating uprising of the poor could be at hand.1

Perhaps the recent mini-revolts in several small Free State towns would be, in Gumede’s mind, the harbingers of bigger things to come. Perhaps. If they, and comparable phenomena elsewhere, serve as wake-up calls for the government, well and good. But it remains difficult to see how scattered, ad hoc manifestations of localised protest could coagulate into a country-wide movement that seriously threatened the ANC government.

Gumede deals critically, but fairly, with two of the biggest failures of Mbeki’s administration: HIV/Aids and Zimbabwe. It has always been difficult to understand why a rational and intelligent man like Mbeki could cleave to the dissident view. Gumede’s view is likely to raise hackles because of the seriousness of his implicit allegation:

Underlying the decision [to delay the roll-out of ARVs] was an unspoken belief among Mbeki’s inner circle that spending money on ARVs would be futile, since the real problem lay with the reasons for South Africa’s masses being particularly vulnerable to Aids. At its most cynical, the view suggests that the exchequer was to be spared the cost of subsidising treatment for the poor and unemployed, who were a drain on resources rather than contributors to the state coffers.2

Gumede shows how hard Mbeki has tried to bring the mad Mugabe to his senses — but in vain, as Mugabe’s thumping ‘victory’ in the recent elections has confirmed. Mugabe has repeatedly reneged on undertakings given to Mbeki, whom he regards as “an arrogant young upstart who should defer to him as an elder statesman”.

Mbeki has won the battle for control of the ANC, if not necessarily its soul. He has done so by a variety of wiles and stratagems that have rendered the ANC a top-down organisation, run on the principle of democratic centralism. Critics, actual or potential, have either been pushed aside or co-opted. Gumede shows all of this in devastating detail.

Will Mbeki’s successor follow the same course, and who will that successor be? In his final chapter Gumede assays the prospects for various possible candidates, noting that the “inziles” (as contrasted with the exiles, who have dominated since 1994) feel that their time has come. The successor, he argues, would probably share Mbeki’s pragmatism and ideological orientation, but, he warns, “the ANC alliance is weary of [Mbeki’s] autocratic style, and his successor is likely to have an established reputation of inclusive, open and consultative leadership”.

So, who will it be? Ramaphosa? Jacob Zuma? Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma? Lekota? Joel Netshitenzhe? Noone knows, but readers of Gumede’s book will have a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each possible candidate.

Endnotes
1 William M Gumede, Thabo Mbeki and the battle for the soul of the ANC, page 289.
2 Ibid, page 162.